Mateo has a terrible, awful crush on Maia Jefferies, the painfully beautiful best-selling novelist who lives next door, but he promised himself he'd never fall for the kindness of a woman like her. Not again. He's been down that road and was left lo...
"And you're going to send me home, aren't you?" Maia murmured as a sob choked from her lips. "I don't want to leave you."
"We don't need to talk about that right now," Mateo said, pulling her legs over his lap and massaging the back of her neck as she cried against his chest. "I'm not letting you out of my sight any time soon, liefje," he whispered, kissing her head. "But I will make sure you're safe."
He didn't have the heart to tell her that the moment they crashed into the sea, he decided then that it was too dangerous for Maia to be with him anymore.
He had to get her out of the country until he dealt with his brother and there was no doubt in his mind that he needed to do whatever he could to keep Maia and his country safe, even if that meant letting her go.
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Maia woke to sunlight streaming in through a small cottage window and the sound of hushed voices from outside the room. She frowned sitting up in the bed and dragged a hand over her face. The last thing she remembered was being holed up in the service room with Mateo and Willem. She must've cried herself to sleep and they must've been picked up by Lars and taken to the safe house.
She pushed the blankets off of her and slipped out of the bed. She looked down at the oversized t-shirt she wore and slipped her feet into a pair of black slippers beside the bed. A white robe hung over the small wooden wardrobe in the corner next to the window that looked out over a field of corn and wheat. She shrugged the robe over her shoulders and shuffled out of the room toward the voices arguing in the living room below.
Maia peered over the railing at Mateo sitting with his head in his hands across from Willem while he spoke in hushed tones about what he needed to do next.
"She's your fiance, Your Highness, if you go through with this without her by your side it's not going to look good for either of you," a gentleman, who she assumed was Lars said over the black satellite phone on the table. "I know you want to protect her, but sending her home to live in isolation and solitude until you reveal yourself isn't a life you should force her to live either."
"Lars is right." Willem nodded. "You're better off doing this together. You need to show the people that you're standing together against Jorien, Gesina and Arnaud's conglomerate," he said, leaning forward on his knees. "Furthermore, you need to ask Miss Jefferies what she wants to do. This happened to her too."
"I know, but I don't want anything else to happen to her," Mateo said, dragging his hands through his hair. "She almost died and you want me to force her to stand with me against the people who tried to kill her?"
Maia clenched her fist. "I didn't almost die. I'm fine and they tried to kill us, Mateo," Maia said as she stomped down the stairs. "I knew you were going to do this."
He looked up at her and her heart clenched at the dark circles under his eyes and guilt plaguing his depths. "Can you blame me?"
"No," she said, sitting beside him and taking his hand. "But I'm not leaving."
